Disclaimer: I actually wrote this whole post before bed but lost it so I'll try again
Today was a day of lines. Not just oh look there's a line let's wait but the kind of lines that make you question your sanity and existence.
The day started out simple enough. We brought all our things down the mountain from our 5th floor room to the basement where the luggage storage area is before heading for breakfast. It was our first full English breakfast and quite enjoyable. The place we ate at had a juice bar as well so we ordered a very expensive apple juice and orange juice but were treated to a freshly squeezed version of both. Like biting right into the apple.
After breakfast we relaxed in the TV room for a bit, and had I known the day that lay before us I probably would have taken a longer time just relaxing there. But I didn't so after a few minutes I called an Uber and we headed to the next hostel in Camden where we overpayed to store our luggage in the electronic lockers. Thank goodness we packed small bags because all the large lockers were taken. We then headed to the bus to get to the Churchill War Room.
If you're wondering why we often take buses instead of the tube it's because EJ said that we can take a subway any day we want back home but a double decker bus is something special. While we were on the bus I watched the crowds of people on the streets begin to magnify ten fold. I didn't even think there was anything to see in Traflgar square but there were hundreds of people there. I should have taken it as a sign.
We got to the war room and found that the line wrapped around the building so we decided to skip it and try the Westminster Abbey. There there were two long lines and after watching them for a while we realized that one of the hour long lines was to get a ticket and the other multiple hour long line was to get in. We opted to go to the much smaller church next door and take a look around. Then we thought let's try the Parliament building and after fighting through throngs of people and waiting in a short line for tickets found out the tickets for that day were already sold out (it was 1 in the afternoon by now).
Slightly defeated we literally fought our way across the bridge to the London Eye where we had chicken curry for lunch and waited for our turn on the giant ferris wheel. Thankfully I knew enough to buy our tickets ahead of time and pay extra for the fast pass. I don't know why the people without fast pass even bother - there was a huge line that didn't even move just to get into the actually line for the ride if you didn't have the fast pass. Craziness!
Once on the gondola though we were treated to a lovely view of the entire city. The sun was beginning to set and we could see the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park off in the distance. There were a bunch of other buildings that we could see but few were as recognizable or in such stark contrast with the surroundings as Big Ben and the Parliament building.
After the ride we made our way to the Winter Festival next door, a much much smaller version of Winter Wonderland, and on our way to finding the bus to the hostel wandered into a skate park that I recognized from one of the Tony Hawk video games. Once we were finally back at the hostel we were able to check-in and be assigned two top bunks. I've never stayed in a top bunk and have even gone so far as to book private rooms in the past to avoid it. I told the receptionist that there's no way I can do a top bed and he found me a bottom for tonight saying that I needed to come back in the morning to try to be reassigned a bottom one permanently. Such anxiety!!
We ended up meeting Danielle and her friend Andy for dinner. Danielle suggested Dishoom, a popular Indian restaurant, where EJ and I waited in line for 20 minutes just to get in to the bar of the restaurant. When we did get to eat it was a lovely family style Indian tapas meal and was quite good. We walked home after dinner and came back to the room to find that the guy that was probably assigned to my bottom bed was in the top bed I was supposed to be in! Thank goodness I left all my things on the bed. The people in our room were also all sleeping or laying in bed watching their iPhones and iPads so we got ready in the dark and went to bed too. After all I have to be up super early to make sure I can keep my bottom bed!
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